Thursday, February 26, 2009

Interesting architecture outside our window

This is the view from one of the 3rd floor bedrooms (the window is quite dirty, sorry).

Here is a better picture of the structure.

It was built as a Methodist church in 1914, later became a United Church, then after two United churches (within 2 blocks of each other) merged due to low attendance, the building was bought by the city and converted to a community centre. One of the neat features of the community centre is that the very top part of the roof is actually glass and in the evening it looks quite beautiful. The structure was designed by Clarence Burritt, who also designed the Confederation Building in Ottawa.

One of the things we've taken to doing lately is walking around the community exploring the variety of buildings. There are a lot of churches in our area (we live in an area called The Glebe, which means 'church lands'), and a nice selection of late Victorian and Edwardian homes. There's a good mix of detached, semi-detached, row homes, and turn of the century apartment buildings.